We told you Nancy Pelosi was going to impeach Donald Trump

| 4:30 pm EDT September 23, 2019
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Over the weekend, a surreal narrative began to take hold across social media: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi must bring articles of impeachment against Donald Trump right this second, or else Trump will magically become emperor, and be able to do anything he wants, and stay in office forever. That narrative also includes the notion that impeachment right this second is necessary even though it has a 100% chance of failing in the Senate, which pretty much negates the premise the only way to stop Trump from magically taking over is to impeach him right now.

This is all, of course, self-contradictory histrionic gibberish that people would be embarrassed to find themselves spouting if they were able to step back and examine the logic of their own words. The thing is, however, impeachment has already begun. The impeachment inquiry has already been voted on in the House Judiciary Committee. In fact last week’s grilling of Trump associate Corey Lewandowski was officially an impeachment hearing. But now we’re getting strong signals that impeachment is about to really take off.

Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that if Donald Trump doesn’t immediately release the Ukraine whistleblower report to Congress, it will take us into a “whole new stage of investigation.” These words were derided by fanatic observers who are willing to accept nothing less than Pelosi waving a magic wand and instantly sending Trump through a trap door. But our take on those words was that the “new stage” Pelosi was referring to was articles of impeachment.

Now, Axios is saying the same thing. Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe is also saying the same thing. There’s a reason for this: with an impeachment inquiry already officially underway, there is literally no other “new stage” or next step other than articles of impeachment.

None of this nuance matters to those who are now frantically insisting that Nancy Pelosi has a magic wand that can immediately get rid of Donald Trump, and are attacking her for not simply waving it. But when it comes to this kind of thing, nuance is in fact everything. So is timing. The Lewandowski hearings were a reminder that until the courts get around to ordering Trump’s allies to give cooperative testimony under threat of arrest for contempt of court, no Trump-friendly witnesses can be counted on for anything.

If Nancy Pelosi were to introduce articles of impeachment today and begin hearings tomorrow on those articles, the witness list would be a short one. The whistleblower could be compelled to testify, but would not be able to discuss any classified information in the complaint. There are some Ukrainian public figures who have signaled a willingness to testify. But that’s about it. At the least, Pelosi has to put together a compelling lineup. But we believe her words yesterday made clear that she’s going to impeach Trump over this. That was always inevitable.